McAfee VirusScan is wildly popular, and with good reason. It does a very good job at virus protection, though it isn't as intuitive as Norton AntiVirus. Updating the virus engine, for instance, may trip up less experienced users.

The VirusScan Central interface, which was introduced in Version 5.0, resembles a Web browser, with Next, Back, and Home buttons for navigating between tasks. Though unconventional, this interface works well and provides fast access to common tasks.

VirusScan does a stellar job at finding and cleaning viruses. But it can be a bit cumbersome when performing manual scans, especially if multiple infected files are found. When VirusScan uncovered more than one virus on our tests, it listed the infected files but didn't let us clean them en masse. Instead, we had to select each file individually and clean or delete it. This can be avoided by changing the scan settings to clean or delete the infected files automatically.

A multitude of preferences offers very good control over how VirusScan works. For example, VShield, which provides real-time virus scanning, lets you control what types of activity it monitors. You can set the scanning sensitivity separately for the VShield, download, and e-mail scanners, and specify whether VShield should monitor files that are run, created, copied, or renamed. And like Panda Antivirus and PC-cillin, VShield doubles as an Internet filter, blocking access to specific IP addresses and URLs.

Updating is an overly complex matter. VirusScan notifies you when an update is available and connects you to the download page. This page, however, contains downloads for a variety of products and versions of VirusScan. We had to select the appropriate download and decide whether we wanted a DAT file (which contains just virus definitions) or a SuperDAT file (which also has engine updates). Descriptions help you choose the appropriate update, but we had to manually open the file after downloading it. This is surely enough to make novice users stumble.

VirusScan includes some clever tools for additional protection. The Safe & Sound feature, for example, guards critical files. To do this, it backs up selected files and directories in the background to a folder on your PC or a network drive whenever changes are made to them. Currently, this feature is available only on Windows 95, 98, and Me, and we experienced a noticeable drop in system performance when Safe & Sound was enabled. To reduce the hit on system resources, you can limit the number of file types being backed up.

McAfee VirusScan

McAfee VirusScan

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